Aint No Mountain High Enough

By

Natalie Elizabeth

Previously on Aint No Mountain High Enough. Castle isn't dealing well with Becketts rejection while Alexis tries to justify her actions.

Beckett looked at her keyboard as she typed; she was reluctant to look at her screen. On her screen in the corner was the time and she had banned herself from looking at the clock. She had even taken off her father's watch to avoid temptation. It was currently sitting on her desk face side down. Monday mornings, she had never really understood the whole I hate Mondays, but for the first time in her life she did. Monday was the day Castle came back to work, Monday 9 am. It had been five days, five long agonising days since she had seen him. Seen him in the flesh at least, she now had photos of him everywhere. It was impossible not to look at them, especially when she sat there on her couch just staring at them.

After she had seen the shirk, she had spent hours driving around the city. She was supposed to stay positive, the shirk wasn't going to fix her straight away. Oh who was she kidding, she thought the shirk was useless. Let's talk about your mother, how typical. Yes she did have issues concerning her mother, had spent ages in therapy for them. This was different, at least she thought it was. She couldn't sleep and her apartment made her feel weird, that was why she was going to the shrink. It wasn't until the last five minutes of their session that they had even addressed her insomnia. Not that it did a lot of good. Everything the shrink told her, Castle had already given her information about. Her apartment was warm, dimly lit, calming surrounds with the pictures of her friends and family. It hadn't worked. After hours of driving around the city she eventually ventured home, only to leave again. She had packed a few things and then headed over to Lanies. Earlier that day had been the first time she had confided in Lanie in quite some time. Castle had been right about what he said to Josh. Her friends for filled certain duties in her life, she had needed Castle to comfort her but maybe she had needed Lanie for consult to. If she had maybe she wouldn't be in the middle of this mess.

She had spent two nights at Lanies, much to Esposito's dismay, and her waistlines. Together the two of them had made love to copious amounts of ice cream while watching movies. Luckily Lanie had a crush on Brad Pitt, she didn't know what she would have done if the main character had been tall, had dark features and was ruggedly handsome. Especially considering they were watching ROMCOMs, there would have been tears of sadness not of joy

8:55.

Crap. She looked at the clock on the screen, she wasn't supposed to do that. Five minutes until Castle turned up, five minutes until she faced the rest of her life. Would she be able to do this, would he? Could they go back to the way things were, before they nearly died in each other arms? She closed her eyes and allowed the memories to flood her mind. Her eyes snapped open at which memory had entered her mind. Not of the two of them in the freezer holding each other waiting for death to consume them, the memory she expected to remember. It wasn't even the memory of them embracing after Castle had successfully disabled the bomb. No, the image she had resurrected from the deep corners of her mind, had been of them making love. How had her mind confused dying in each others arms with making... Oh my god had she really just thought making love. No they hadn't, had they? No? Surely not, but maybe... No they had, had s... No that didn't sound right, she couldn't even think it let alone say it. Shared something special, yes that's what she would call it. Yet that didn't seem right either. What they ahd shared was almost indescribable. Lanie had tried to broach the subject numerous times throughout her stay but she had ended it there. She wasn't ready to discuss it, yet. She needed Lanie time, not lanie time talking about Castle. The point was she needed to get past it, so they could work together. No matter what IT was called. Maybe they shouldn't have decided to go back to before the freezer. It should have been back to when they had first met, she hadn't liked him much then. Ok now she was lying to herself, she really was sick. Maybe she needed to see some kind of specialist.

Beckett took a long sip of her coffee; it was going to be a long day. Castle had texted her last night asking if they were working on a case and when he should come in. A case had just been wrapped up but she had told him to come in at 9. She figured it would be easier to face him at the precinct then over a dead body. He could also catch up with the guys who were complaining about him not being there. It had been a shock to see his smiling face appear on her phone. She had spent the two previous nights staring at the photos on her wall, it was as shock to see a different photo. A shock and a delight, she had almost texted come over. He was her friend though, and she wasn't feeling friendly thoughts about him. He was even invading her dreams, in the little sleep she got. She had watched Castle standing in front of a woman, pain clearly on his face. Her dream self had approached the woman spun her around and it was like looking into a mirror. A fight had immediately broke out fists and legs flying everywhere. It only stopped because she had punched her alarm clock off the bedside table.

Taking another sip of her coffee she almost chocked when the elevator pinged. It was Castle and he held two coffees in his hand. Crap Alexis had told her not to even accept his coffee; he only got it because she liked it. She turned and quickly sculled what was left of her coffee. Opening her desk drawer she crammed the cup inside before grabbing some mints and throwing them into her mouth. Spying the coffee ring on her desk Beckett scrambled for a scrap of paper to cover it with just as Castle strode up.

"Good Morning Detective Beckett."

Beckett looked up at him and frowned. He didn't look good. Well he always looked good, but today he looked different. Tired, drained, serious. He handed her one of the cups and she had to clench her hands into fists to stop herself from automatically accepting it. She looked back at her computer screen.

"Actually Castle I appreciate it but I have gone off Coffee," she swirled the mints around in her mouth so her breath wouldn't reveal her lie.

"Oh," Castle looked down at the takeaway cups in his hands. Then a thought hit him "Oh," he said more loudly.

Beckett looked up at his loud exclamation and then watched in confusion as he quickly ran around the precinct. He handed one cup of coffee to the new guy, who's name she had only recently discovered was actually Nugui. Castle then threw what must have been his cup away and then ran to her desk and went to open her drawer where her forbidden coffee cup was hiding. Her hand went to the drawer to stop it from opening.

"What are you doing?"

Castle frowned at her, then covered his mouth when he began to speak.

"I was just going to grab one of your mints so you can't smell the coffee on my breath."

Becketts brows rose, "Why?"

"Because we need to talk privately and I don't want you to smell the coffee."

Beckett opened the drawer enough to slide her hand in and retrieved the mints for Castle. She didn't hand them to him instead placed them on the desk beside her before retuning back to her work on the screen.

"Look Castle I think we have talked enough, we just need to move on."

Castle sat in his chair, the chair she had spent so much time over the last few days staring at. He leant forward and looked at her seriously.

"This is different I think we need to address it now."

"Castle no, ok," Why was he making this so hard? He was the one who agreed to this. If he wanted to talk why hadn't he called in the last five days, texted even. She had needed space but she would have spoken to him to avoid a messy discussion at work. Didn't he realise how hard it was for her to do this.

He leaned back in his chair and sighed before pulling out his phone. She looked out of the corner of her eye as he fiddled with it. Probably playing angry birds she thought. When her own phone went off signifying a message she picked it up and rolled her eyes when she saw it was a message from Castle. He gave her a look as if to say I told you we needed to talk. She humoured him by opening the message and then her mouth gaped open at the words that appeared before her.

Are you pregnant ?

Her brow furrowed as she turned to look at him her mouth still hanging open. He opened his mouth to speak but she held her hand up to stop him then closed her hand and lowered her arm then looked away from him. She took a few breaths before standing up and striding off. She stopped and turned to look at the writer who was looking at her curiously.

"You coming?"

She turned and walked off towards the stairwell, assuming he would follow. Once she entered she realised this was a bad idea, the last time she had been here talking with Castle she had hit him. The second most horrible event in her life. She could take him into the interrogation room but didn't want to take a chance that Ryan and Esposito would be watching from the other side. Walking down a few steps she sat down and rested her back against the wall, noticing Castle had followed suit.

"So why did you think I was pregnant?"

"You said you were laying off the coffee, sometimes pregnant woman hate the smell of coffee, it makes them throw up. Doctors usually recommend staying off the caffeine too."

Beckett frowned at his comment.

"You didn't think that maybe, my Doctors thought too much caffeine was causing me insomnia."

Castle nodded at her. "Yeah there is that but we didn't use protection."

Becketts face changed from a frown to a blank stare. What!

Castle turned and looked down the stairs before running a hand through his hair. "I am so sorry Beckett, I am never this careless. I always use a condom. I can't believe I was so careless. I was just so caught up in the moment it's never been like that before. I can't believe I wasn't thinking about protecting you."

Beckett could see he was obviously distressed, and there wasn't really any reason to be.

"I'm assuming there was at least one other time you didn't use protection." She tried to lighten the mood.

Castle shook his head. "You think I am this reckless playboy."

She interrupted him before he could say anything else stupid."I meant because of Alexis, your ex wife doesn't exactly come across as the Virgin Mary."

Castle took in what she said and nodded. "Oh"

He turned to look down the stairs again.

"Meredith and I were dating for a few months when she complained she didn't like the feel of condoms. Said it felt like she was fucking a Ken doll. It was quite a hit to the anatomy considering Ken doesn't have any. So she told me she was on the pill and I stopped using them. Six months later she tells me she is pregnant, said she had been sick the week she got pregnant, probably threw the pill up."

Beckett nodded, when she was younger she had been on the pill and told to be careful and use extra protection if she had been ill or forgot to take a dose.

"It wasn't until we were at the Doctor for a check up and Meredith had to go pee. The Doc congratulated me and said he told Meredith to keep trying and to have faith we would eventually get pregnant it would just take time."

Beckett was surprised to here this little insight into Castles life. She assumed he had fallen in love gotten married and then had Alexis. She was a fan of his work but wasn't the kind to know every little detail.

"I'm sorry Castle I didn't realise Meredith trapped you into marriage." If she had know she would never had joked about it.

"It was a shot gun wedding but no one held a shot gun to my head so to speak. I cared about Meredith , I really did, the truth was I cared more about my unborn child. I grew up without a father and I think I turned out ok but I saw how hard it was for my mother. Trying to work while trying to figure out who was going to watch me, a bunch of other stuff. I didn't want that for my child so I married Meredith. I vowed to love her because she was my wife and the mother of my child."

"That's an honourable thing to do."

Castle shook his head. "No it isn't, where is the honour in marring someone you don't truly love. Just another example of my best intentions turning out to be failures."

Beckett sighed, he had to be talking about them, about her. He had the best intentions when it came to helping her out with her problems and it had just made things worse.

"After a while we started to drift apart, we had less and less in common and then she cheated on me."

Becketts eyes bulged, Meredith cheated on Castle!

"You know I stayed with her for three months after I found out, three months! My stupid best intentions again, I thought it would be best for Alexis. I couldn't have been more wrong. One night I went to tuck Alexis in and give her a hug and a kiss. She shook her head, told me she knew I didn't like to be hugged and kissed so I didn't have to hug her."

"What, you're a big hugging family," images of Alexis hugging her instantly made her feel sad. She wouldn't be doing that anymore. Hugging Alexis, hugging her like her mother had done. An unexpected feeling of despair filled her. No longer would she feel that.

"Meredith figured we would continue on as usual with our relationship, but just because I was staying, didn't mean I was. I moved into my own room, would have to peel Meredith off me whenever she would try and hug and kiss me. Alexis must have seen this. I packed my bags that night, I couldn't have my daughter thinking i didn't want her cuddles. I had just opened the door when Meredith practically threw Alexis at me, told me she couldn't handle her on her own. Alexis the best kid in the world and Meredith couldn't handle her. I hadn't planned on leaving Alexis there for long, I was going to stay in a hotel and then speak to a lawyer in the morning. It was nine at night and I didn't want to pull her out of bed, but Meredith did. My daughter had to experience her mother giving her up in a matter of seconds. I hated myself for that. Hated that I put out my own child through that. So from then on I vowed that I would always use protection, even if the woman told me she was covered. No way was I letting my child go through that." He looked up at her now, sadness in his eyes. "I am so sorry I didn't protect you."

Becketts heart was breaking for the man before her. He was such an iceberg.

"Castle you don't have to feel sorry for anything."

"But I didn't protect you."

"I didn't protect me either Castle and that was very stupid. There is more at stake here than pregnancy there's, diseases to."

His eyes widened, he hadn't even thought of that.

"I'm clean. I swear, I can give you the report from the Doctor"

Beckett shook her head. "If you say you're clean Castle then I believe you. I am clean to, in fact I've never done it without one before, so we are defintly safe. The point is we should have used protection but the onus is on both of us, not just you."

Castle nodded she was right, it took two to tango and two to remember the condom. The thought of being Becketts first without one stuck in his mind thought. He was Becketts first. It shouldn't have happened but he couldn't help but be a little bit happy by that idea, was that wrong ?

"You don't have to worry about me being pregnant, I've got it covered."

"The pill isn't 100% effective."

"I'm not on the pill, it doesn't work for me."

Castle frowned at her, the pill didn't work, did that mean she had gotten pregnant.

"What?"

"Oh no, not that" she responded as if reading his mind. "I went on the pill, when I was 17 because..."

She looked at Castle who was looking at her expectantly. Did she really want to tell him this, did he really want to know. Most guys usually ran for the hills when ever woman mentioned the P word. Yet he was worried that he had somehow violated her body and he needed to know that it was ok. He had also just revealed a very intimate and hurtful event from his past. She should let him know a little about her own.

"I got a lot of pain once a month."

Castle continued to frown at her.

"A lot of pain at my time of the month," she explained.

His brows turned from frowning to understanding.

"I went on the pill when I was 17 to combat the pain. It worked for awhile but then the pain came back. I spent years changing from pill after pill. and Had two exploratory surgeries with some experimental procedures but nothing worked. It wasn't until I saw my second Gyno, the one who was into the experimental stuff, that I saw some progress. He kept giving me options if the next thing we were trying didn't work. I have got this thing inserted into my arm, it's about the size of a tooth pick. It works great at stopping the pain but its a contraceptive too. I don't have to worry about forgetting to take it or throwing up and getting pregnant. So we are safe on that front."

Beckett sat there and watched as he nodded, there was nothing to worry about. Except for the fact she wanted to place her hand on his knee reassuringly. Hold his hand and give it a squeeze to say thank you for being so worried and concerned about her. Brush back that strand of hair that fel so deliously over his eyebrow. Heck she was in trouble. She stood up. Sitting so close together in a stairwell was a bad idea.

"I should thank you for sending me a text about what you wanted to talk about. Not bringing it up in the precinct even thought I didn't want to talk. I appreciate it."

Castle nodded, and stood up to.

"You know I would never do anything to intentionally hurt you, or embarrass you, or make things hard for you at work."

He raised his hand and ran it down the side of her arm. Up and down. Up and down. Beckett closed her eyes and revelled in the sensation. Her breathing became laboured as he continued to stroke her arm. Up and down. Up and down. Beckett opened her eyes and ran her tongue over her suddenly dry lips.

"Castle" his name whispered from her lips.

His arm dropped suddenly.

"Right, sorry, no touching got it."

His mood changed instantly, she could tell from years of interrogating. He had gone from sweet and caring to tense and standoffish.

"We should probably get out of here" he told her not waiting for her to respond. He simply walked off.

"I'll be back in a sec."

He nodded but didn't look back at her just continued to walk with his head held down. Once he left Beckett placed her hands on her face and let out a groan. Her hands slid down her face to her neck staying there for a few seconds before they bunched into fists. She lowered them to her sides and let out another loud groan while she ran on the spot and shock her hands in frustration. One day! She couldn't even go one day without him touching her, without her wanting to touch him. Ok yes they had spent days apart but he had been at the precinct for a whole ten minutes before the incident had occurred. Ten minutes! How was she supposed to get through the rest of her life if she couldn't get through ten minutes.

Beckett rested her back against the wall and knocked her head against it, over and over again. Why did he make her feel this way? Why did he have the ability to make her shiver while at the same time filling her body with such heat? Beckett stopping hitting her head against the wall and gave herself one more shake. as if ridding her body from the sensation that was thrumming throughout her. Yeah , like that was going to work. Taking a deep breath she straighten her back and strode back into the precinct, she could do this. Seeing Castle standing with Ryan and Esposito laughing made her stop short. His smile was infectious, the way his face crinkled, the light in his eyes. Beckett turned and went back into the stairwell. She needed a few more minutes to get a hold of herself. Minutes huh, more like hours.

AUTHORS NOTE: THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR WONDERFUL YOUR REVIEWS AND FOR STICKING WITH THIS STORY.